The [wiki:Wiki:FrontPage first ever wiki site] was founded in 1994 as an automated supplement to the PortlandPatternRepository. The site was instantaneously popular within the pattern community, largely due to the newness of the internet and a good slate of InvitedAuthors. The site was, and remains, dedicated to PeopleProjectsAndPatterns.

WardCunnigham created the site and the WikiWikiWeb machinery that operates it. He chose wiki-wiki as an alliterative substitute for quick and thereby avoided naming this stuff quick-web. An early page, WikiWikiHyperCard, traces wiki ideas back to a HyperCard stack he wrote in the late 80's.